This thesis studies the development of the Portland, Oregon Chinese immigrant community between 1850 and 1910. Chinese immigrants first arrived in Portland in the mid-1850s and quickly created businesses as well as social institutions they transplanted from China to the U.S. West. They also established intricate relationships among themselves and with members of the surrounding white community. County and state court records held at the Multnomah County Courthouse and National Archives in Seattle, Washington, reveal much about the Chinese immigrant community in Portland and provide a window into a society that left few written records. Through the analysis of hundreds of court cases held at the Multnomah County Courthouse in Portland, this thesis reconstructs four broad aspects of Portland's Chinese immigrant community. The first chapter discusses the arrival and establishment of Chinese immigrants in Portland. The second chapter discusses Chinese experience with white missionaries in the courts as both groups battled for custody rights to Chinese women and children. The third chapter looks at the case of United States v. John Wilson, which revealed how Chinese and whites had collaborated to establish one of the largest and most successful immigrant and opium smuggling rings on the West Coast. With the aim of profiting from Chinese exclusion, the white and Chinese operators of this ring bridged racial barriers that had, for decades, divided the two groups. In chapter four, finally, the thesis examines social conflict within the late nineteenth century Portland Chinese community. This chapter describes how internal conflicts in Portland Chinatown, stemming from traditional social associations transplanted from China, played as strong a role in shaping the Chinese community in Portland as did exclusion laws determined to end the entry of Chinese to the United States.

Between 1845 and 1980 the Portland waterfront between southwest Washington and Clay Streets, east of Front Street, metamorphosed from wilderness to trade center, to highway, to inner-city vacant lot. No place in Portland has more graphically illustrated the rapidly changing forces of the modern age in which the city has grown. For much of its history this stretch of waterfront was mired in law suits. The struggles centered on public versus private ownership. Originally dedicated as public property, but left unimproved by the city, the waterfront was usurped by private investors. Eventually, private owners allowed their property to decay prompting the public to encourage improvements. The legal battles even became reversed as private investors sought to force the sale of the waterfront to the city. Through all the confusion of legal battles this stretch of waterfront played a central role in the development and identity of Portland. It has finally become, undisputed public territory. The tension and greed of private investment have been replaced by the lack of municipal funds for aesthetic improvement and have left this stretch of land, a potentially fine and important urban park, a vacant lot.

The Selective Service Act of 1917 made provision for the exemption of conscientious objectors belonging to certain religious bodies. It did not provide protection for the sincere individual objector against vilification from a public who labeled him disloyal, unpatriotic, and pro-Hun. This report is based on an incident which occurred in Portland, Oregon. It involves the assistant librarian of the Library Association of Portland who was a conscientious objector, and the repercussions which her stand had on the library board, the head librarian, and the public in general. In April of 1918, Portland had just completed a successful drive for contributions to the third Liberty Loan drive. Indeed, Oregon was the first state to complete its quota. On the day that this victory was confirmed, an afternoon paper broke the news that the assistant librarian of the public library, Miss M. Louise Hunt, had refused to buy bonds. This action touched off a heated controversy which affected not only Miss Hunt herself, but involved the governing body of the library. Before the incident was closed, civic and social organizations and individual citizens found an opportunity to express their views on the subject of conscientious objections. Miss Hunt refused to purchase bonds on the ground that she was a conscientious objector and could not support the war. Her opponents pointed out that she was a well paid county employee and therefore was under obligation to support the war bond drive. A committee from the bond drive headquarters, calling on Miss Hunt at the library, tried to persuade her to change her mind. Her statements, as quoted in the press, were ill-chosen and branded her in the public mind as pro-German. She was also interviewed by an agent of the United States District Attorney. Public indignation was so aroused that a special meeting of the library board was called to consider the matter. With one dissenting vote from the board itself and one from the chairman of the county commissioners who serve as ex-officio members of the library board, the board went on record as believing that Miss Hunt had never in any way obstructed, nor intended to obstruct, the activities of the Government. Although the board plainly stated that they did not share in any way Miss Hunt's opinions, they felt the right to one’s own conscientious opinion was the very foundation of human freedom. They were unwilling to compel anyone to , give up the very thing for which the war was being fought. This, in 1918, was a most unusual and courageous stand for any civic body.to take in the face of accusations of disloyalty. Public disapproval of the board's action was so great that a second meeting was held to reconsider the decision. At this time, Miss Hunt presented her resignation from the library staff. By now, tempers were frayed and the dissenting board member protested the board's stand. Charges of disloyalty were hurled against the president of the board and the head librarian. Immediately, civic and social groups demanded the dismissal of the governing body. Wiser voices spoke up in defense of both board and librarian and the press turned from personal details of the squabbling to a more objective discussion of the principles involved in freedom of conscience. Miss Hunt returned to her home in Maine and, as far as Portland was concerned, the Hunt affair was over. In a larger sense, the Hunt case forced Portland to confront, if only briefly, its historical ideals and to consider to what degree it was willing to protest the right to dissent during a period of crisis.

The present thesis chronicles the decision to replace Portland, Oregon's Harbor Drive, a downtown highway located between Front A venue and the Willamette River, with Tom McCall Waterfront Park, a thirty-seven acre linear greenway, in the late 1960s and 1970s. These events provide an example of the battle against the ascendancy of the automobile and the ability of concerned citizen groups to affect city planning decisions.

Founded in 1892, the Portland Art Association (PAA) served as Oregon's and the Pacific Northwest's leading visual arts institution for almost a century. While the Association formally dissolved in 1984, its legacy is felt strongly today in the work of its successor organizations, the Portland Art Museum and Pacific Northwest College of Art. Emerging during a period of considerable innovation in and fervent advocacy for the arts across America, the Association provided the organizational network and resources around which an energetic and diverse group of city leaders, civic reformers and philanthropists, as well as artists and art educators, coalesced. This thesis describes the collaboration among arts and civic advocates under the banner of aesthetic education during the Association's first four decades. Though art education continued to be critically important to the organization after 1932, the year the Association opened its new Museum, art was no longer conceived of as an instrument for improving general community life and programs focused on more specialized, fine arts-related activities.